I've long dreamed of walking across a country. Though my life and career have allowed me to somewhat satiate my seemingly unbounded wanderlust, and though I've done some substantial treks, I've never had the experience of walking across an entire nation, feeling the subtle and not-so-subtle changes in terrain, weather, culture, and architecture as I go. So when a constellation of people in my close circle walked the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, including my close childhood friend Rich, my cousin Sandra and her husband Marc, and my older daughter Rachel, my interest was piqued. In both 2010 and 2011 I walked four days of it, the first time with my son Josh during a 12 day visit to Spain, and the second time on my own. After those short but inspiring experiences, I decided I wanted to walk the nearly 500 miles from the Pyrenees to Santiago. So when I retired earlier this year from my three decades long career as a dealer in rare books on art and architecture, walking the Camino became my focus and I've been preparing for it all winter and spring.

And now my wife Terry and I have begun our adventure. The plan is for us to walk together for the first five days, then she'll head home to go back to work, and after we take a break to say goodbye, I'll continue on from where we stop. So after flying into Barcelona and spending time there, then taking the train to Pamplona, where we spent another day, we arrived in Roncesvalles yesterday evening after an hour and a half bus ride along twisting mountain roads from Pamplona.

Roncesvalles, where we decided to start our Camino, is a tiny village in the Pyrenees on the Spanish side of the border with France. It's famous as the site of the defeat of Charlemagne by the Basques in the 8th century and as a stopping place for pilgrims on the Camino arriving from various parts of Europe for over a thousand years.

Tucked into the mountains and surrounded by rolling hills and woods, the village--really just a small handful of old buildings--was shrouded in mist and fog and early evening light when the bus dropped us off. It had a magical and mystical air and was abuzz with pilgrims, both those who had walked the treacherous 22K route from St. Jean Pied a Port, where many folks start from, and those who were planning to start their Camino the next day.

The buildings, dating from the medieval era to the 18th century, have been repurposed for the modern Camino. The albergue is in an old monastery, and our hotel was in a converted hospital. A sprawling three floor building with stone walls up to three feet thick, it featured an entry lobby floor made of stones inlaid in floral patterns and massive exposed wooden beams throughout. Our room, on the third and top floor, was dominated by the modern roof structure that jutted into the living space, and the gigantic beams were kind of dangerous--Terry had to duck to get to the bathroom from her side of the bed. We enjoyed our first pilgrim meal, salad, steak, potatoes, wine and dessert, in the stone walled dining room before going upstairs to bed.

We were awakened repeatedly in the middle of the night by the pounding of torrential rain against the roof. And it was cold. I dreaded the idea of walking 3 or 4 hours the next day in such awful weather. Though it was still raining steadily after breakfast, the weather report said it would lessen as the day went on. We decided to try to wait it out and indeed by 11 AM there was a break, so we set out.

As is often the case in the mountains the weather was changeable throughout the day. As we walked past farms, through woods and fields, and through several impossibly picturesque villages, the sun broke through and disappeared, it drizzled, it rained harder, and the wind was steady at times and occasionally stiff. Definitely not what we would have hoped for, but in its own way it was thrilling.

We walked about 8 miles, and now we're ensconced in a pension, really a guest room with a slanted ceiling and exposed beams on the upper floor of an expanded house, in a tiny village called Viscarret-Guerendiain. We've just gotten out of our wet clothes and are assessing just how much water got into our backpacks. It's raining hard outside and we're too cold to go out to get some food even though we're ravenous, but I'm sure once we shower and warm up we'll be game.